


You Mean too Much to Me

by Liziib



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, callum and ez mentioned, callum and rayla implied but can be read either way, character study for rayla mostly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 08:32:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18028343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liziib/pseuds/Liziib
Summary: She feels too much, and too little, and both all at once. It’s annoying, never being able to make up your mind about who you want to be, how you want to feel.Maybe she should stop thinking about it.-Callum and Ezran have given her something precious, something she didn’t know she needed.





	You Mean too Much to Me

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this at 12 AM bc i have a lot of feelings abt this show!! this is unbeta’d but i did my best. (this is full of headcanons that will most certainly be debunked once season 3 hits but let me have my fun)

She could think of a thousand ways Callum annoyed her.  
The way he argues with her.  
The times he puts himself in danger.  
The dumb ideas.  
The way he worries about her too much.  
How much he cares.  
How peaceful he looks when he’s asleep  
How terrifying it was when she almost lost him-  
wait, what was she thinking about again?

-

She feels too much, and too little, and both all at once. It’s annoying, never being able to make up your mind about who you want to be, how you want to feel. Especially when you have to turn your back on everything you’ve ever known to stop a thousand-year war. A lot of things annoyed her about her new traveling companions, but maybe she annoyed herself the most.  
Maybe she should stop thinking about it.

-

At night, she takes first watch, and while her new ~~(friends?)~~ companions sleep, she looks at the stars. And when she has enough time alone in her head, a memory comes from when she was little.

Being a kid was hard enough, especially when you couldn’t get along with anyone else your age. With anyone else at all, really. Her parents’ crimes hung heavy on her shoulders, and no matter how hard she tried to prove herself, she was forced to carry them with her. Runaan taught her to stand up for herself, but sometimes she couldn’t help but crumble under the weight of it all. He was more patient with her when she was small.

“What do we do with the bad things?” Runaan’s voice comes to mind. “All the sad thoughts, and the distractions?”

“We put them in the box!” she sees herself younger, maybe 8 or so, learning yet another lesson from the only person she’d let herself care about. Not that she’d ever admit it out loud.

“And?” he prompts.

“Throw away the key.”

“Good.” he gives her head a pat. ~~And she’s happy, because all she wants is for someone to be proud, to look at her and see something other than her parents’ mistake.~~

If anything, he’d certainly taught her to focus.

So, she focuses on standing guard again, putting the memory back in its box, throwing away the key.

-

Moonshadow elves were taught to be fearless in the face of danger, but she’d never been this scared.  
Callum (Her companion? Her friend? Something more? Why was this so confusing?) was far too pale, far too cold, wasn’t breathing right. For the first time in a long time, she felt entirely helpless. Denial was new to her, dread sat awful in her chest. This couldn’t be the end, could it? But what could she do?  
“Callum I... I..”  
Nothing she could say would be enough. How do you tell someone you’ve known for two weeks that they’ve changed your life forever? That they’ve made you a better person? That you couldn’t do this without them? There were so many feelings rushing through her head, she couldn’t figure out an end to the sentence that would tie them all together.  
To her luck, she didn’t have to, because suddenly Callum was rising from the dead, the life returning to his eyes, his skin, his breath. Things seemed a lot less drastic when he was sitting up again, and oops maybe she’d said too much already, and did embarrassment always burn like that?

-

It’s getting harder not to care. Her thoughts stray more and more from the mission.  
When Ezran is sick, she thinks only of how to make him better until she finds a solution.  
When she drops the egg, all she can focus on is the guilt, eating her to pieces.  
She watches Callum carry Ezran on his shoulders, pointing out all the new sights and sounds, thinking she’d gladly lose a hand for this.  
~~She sees Callum, far too pale, far too cold, the panic starting to set in.~~  
At first, Runaan’s disappointment is heavy on her heart, but the more she watches her new friends (definitely friends, because she’s earned their trust, and they’ve earned her’s in turn), the more she thinks it could be okay.

When she puts her hand on Callum’s shoulder, and he smiles again, she thinks that alone could make it all worth it. 

Rayla can feel again, deeply, intensely, unapologetically. And nothing will get locked away anymore, in the new world they’ll build together.

Hopefully that’s not wishful thinking.

**Author's Note:**

> ty for reading im sorry this is so short djbrjvngn ill probably want to edit this later honestly.... I love rayla w/ my whole heart she cares about her friends so much.,,,. gn


End file.
